“We come and go so quickly, Lorelei,” he did tell me as an initial reason. “It’s better if we’re easily forgotten.”
Of course, he meant only us daughters when he said “we.” I couldn’t imagine Daddy ever being easily forgotten. And yet I supposed that was part of his magic. He could swoop down on a new community, very quickly impress those he wanted to impress, and then slip away like a dream.
This particular morning, Ava surprised me by getting up before me and being at breakfast. She had no early classes to attend at UCLA and usually slept until hours after I rose. That didn’t bother me in the least. I was happy to miss her in the morning. Most mornings, she was angry at everything, even the sun for having the audacity to rise so early. Why couldn’t night be longer? she would petulantly ask.
“Ava will have to move to Norway,” Daddy would joke, “or perhaps the North Pole and room with Santa Claus.”
“Fine with me,” she would reply. “They are the luckier ones.”
At the time, I didn’t realize she was talking about families like ours who really did live in Scandinavia. She saw it as some sort of a reward.
“Once you spend a full winter there, you will change your mind,” Daddy told her. “I remember being stuck there for a few months during winter.”
Was there anywhere on this earth where Daddy hadn’t spent some time?
Contrary to her usual morning misery, Ava looked bright and cheery, babbling on with Marla about the fashions teenage girls wore these days. I was hoping to see Daddy at the table, but he had apparently left early on one of those secret missions Mrs. Fennel covered with the words “business trip.” Usually, Ava hated it when she was up and I said “Good morning,” but she said it before I could even think of it.
“I’m taking you and Marla to school today,” she told me immediately. “And I’ll pick you both up at the end of the day.”
“Why?”
She glanced at Mrs. Fennel, who was putting out my bowl of her warm cereal, but Mrs. Fennel didn’t look at her or speak. She barely glanced at me, but when she did, I saw she had a softer, more pleased expression. Her eyes confirmed that there was something very different about me, and whatever it was, it very definitely pleased her. Had Ava given her a report on our night out as well?
“I need to spend more time with you,” Ava said. “Especially after last night.”
Marla looked at me enviously. Ava wasn’t up this early talking to her because of her. She was up talking to her because of me. “What happened last night?” she asked.
“Never mind,” Ava said.
“I’m old enough to know,” Marla moaned. If she was looking to Mrs. Fennel for any help, she might as well look at the wall, I thought. Neither she nor Ava responded. Marla sulked, but when Mrs. Fennel glanced at her, she quickly returned to her breakfast.
I sat and started on my cereal. Like everything else Mrs. Fennel made, it was different from anything my classmates would eat. From what I understood, many of them didn’t even eat breakfast, and if they did, it was some sweet cake or some supposedly healthy morning drink their mothers made them drink. Of course, they were starving at lunch. Mrs. Fennel always prepared our special lunch drink for Marla and me. We drank it with one of her unique crackers, which were always a dark gray color, nothing that appeared too appetizing to the other students who saw us drinking and eating.
Recently, Meg Logan, pretending to have a change of heart about me, had sweetly asked me what I ate and what skin cream I used. As difficult as it was for her to admit it, she envied me for my complexion and my figure. Of course, I couldn’t tell her, because I really didn’t know exactly what I was eating or what Mrs. Fennel put into her recipe for our skin creams. I couldn’t describe the flavors, either, at least not in ways she or any of the others would understand, and Mrs. Fennel had made it very clear, frighteningly clear, that we must never let anyone else taste our food.
“Nothing unusual,” I replied, which she took as a blowoff.
She pulled her head back and her nose up, as if she had suddenly smelled something horrible. “Well, excuse me for asking,” she said. “You might not eat anything unusual, but you’re certainly weird.”
“Is that the only word in your vocabulary, Meg? Try ‘different,’ ‘strange,’ ‘peculiar,’ and give ‘weird’ a day off. In fact, shut up for a day, and give the English language a break.”
She muttered something under her breath and hurried away to tell her friends what I had said. They all glared angrily in my direction. Although I wouldn’t show it, I would have to admit that all of this bothered me. When I told Ava about the looks they often gave me, she said, “Ignore them. They’re meaningless,” but I was having trouble doing it—more trouble, I believed, than she and Brianna had had when they were my age. Neither had ever expressed the unhappiness I felt at school and at not being part of anything girls my age were a part of. Why didn’t they long for these things as much as I did?
Of course, I was very curious about what Ava wanted to discuss. It had to be important to get her up this early. She began the moment we were all in the car and leaving for school.
“I told Daddy that I had a really good feeling about you last night. I don’t have to tell you, Lorelei, that I’ve had my doubts about you.”
“Why?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is I saw things going on in you last night that were positive, things that reminded me of myself when I first went out. You’re a quick study, maybe even quicker than I was.”
“Really?”
Was this my sister Ava talking? Giving me compliments? Was I really the reason for this new bloom about her face, this pleasantness and happiness? I couldn’t help but be suspicious. When would the famous second shoe be dropped? What was the catch here? Where was all of this flattery taking me?
“Yes,” she said, smiling at me. “Maybe you don’t realize it yet, but the change, as Daddy likes to refer to it, has begun in you and, I might add, is going gangbusters. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it in yourself.”
“I do, Ava, but I’m not sure what it is I’m feeling exactly.”
“You’re feeling the power,” she said.
“What is the power?”
“The gift that makes it possible for you to do for Daddy what your sisters, what I, have done for him. It’s not just being attractive. You will mesmerize, capture, and fascinate. When the expression He lost his head over her is applied to you, it will have real meaning.” She laughed. “You’ll get to feel like a goddess, like the puppeteer pulling the strings and making them dance. You had a taste of that last night, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and nodded. “I remember my first taste of it. It was truly like drinking from the Fountain of Youth. The energy, the strength, the confidence in yourself that you feel right now will never die, Lorelei.”
“You make it sound as if we’re immortal.”
She smiled and then lost the smile quickly as her real purpose for getting up early and driving me returned. “The reason I wanted to drive you to school today and talk to you, something Daddy insists on, by the way, is that you’re going to see the change reflected in the way the boys in your school look at you today. You’re going to lay down a direct path to their libidos.”
“What’s a libido?” Marla asked. For a while, I had forgotten she was with us, I was so lost in the things Ava was saying.
“You want the technical definition?” Ava asked, winking at me.
“Okay.”
“It’s what Sigmund Freud called the generalized sexual energy of which conscious activity is the expression. I’m taking a course in human psychology,” Ava told me.
She never discussed or even mentioned her classes at UCLA. I always thought it was an unpleasant experience for her but something she had to do because Daddy asked her to do it. In fact, she complained so much about doing it that I was afraid to ask her anything.
“Daddy thought I needed the
class,” she added. Then she turned to Marla and said, “It means getting them hot, Marla. You know what that is, right?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I know when boys are hot.”
Ava laughed.
“I do.”
“She’ll be right on your heels, Lorelei. Be happy about it.”
“Is that why you’re so happy this morning, Ava?” I asked. “I’m right on your heels?”
“Exactly. See, you are getting smarter, wiser, more perceptive.”
“Why does that please you so much, Ava? Not that I’m upset about it. I just want to know why.”
“Why? Why?” She shook her head. “Simple, Lorelei. You’ll be taking over that much faster.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll leave to fulfill my destiny,” she said, and drove on, her face filled with such pleasure and delight it was truly as if she could see her destiny right before us.
“What is this destiny, exactly?” I asked. “I never understood when Mrs. Fennel said that was what Brianna was pursuing, her destiny.”
She looked at me and smiled. “When your time comes, Lorelei, you’ll know. Believe me, you’ll know,” she said, and left it at that, another secret still wrapped tightly in mystery.
After we arrived at school, Ava asked me to wait until Marla had gotten out to go into the building. She looked more serious now, more her old self, her eyes filled with warning and threat.
“From now on, you have to be even more cautious than before,” she began. “I know what you’ve been through up until now. I know what it was like for you to remain so aloof, be such a loner, with no apparent interest in making close friends, joining anything. Even though you were somewhat attractive, boys gave up on you, right?”
“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t convinced they had entirely given up on me. Some still smiled and said hello occasionally. A few even tried to start conversations, but I knew where those conversations would lead, so I discouraged them.
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t in their fantasies, Lorelei, and now you’re going to be in them even more. It’s because of the gift, this glow that’s around you.”
“I don’t understand, Ava. Where did it suddenly come from? Just going out with you?”
“No, it started before that. Neither Daddy nor I wanted to mention it until you had gone out with me, been tested in the field, so to speak. You don’t quite realize it all yet, but you’re like a race horse that, if not kept under control, would gallop so hard and fast it would burn itself out. Control is now the key word. When I told Marla you had laid a path to their libidos, I left out that yours is eager to charge forward, too. Remember how I’ve been constantly warning you about your urges, how I teased you about having a crush on a boy or giving away your virginity too quickly? Well, I was preparing you for this,” she said. “This is what Daddy saw coming.”
“The gift?”
“Exactly. It’s the reason you are so special, why we are all so special.”
“I don’t understand why I am special, Ava. I’ve never understood that.”
She nodded. “You will.”
“Why do you keep saying you will, you will? Why can’t you just tell me?”
She was silent a moment and just stared ahead at the school building. “You’re going to be late,” she said.
“No. Answer me,” I said, taking a sharper tone than I had ever taken with her. “Why can’t you just tell me things and not have me go around guessing and wondering?”
“Don’t start regressing on me and acting like a child. No tantrums, now, Lorelei.”
“I’m not having a tantrum. You say I have this special gift, that I’m older. Well, treat me that way. Why can’t you just tell me?”
Her eyes grew smaller, not hateful and not even angry. They were more full of mystery than rage. She looked as if she could see something in me that I couldn’t. I felt as if I were under an X-ray. I actually sat back.
“Why?” I repeated more forcefully.
“For the same reason Mrs. Fennel or Brianna couldn’t come right out and tell you what Daddy needed. Remember how shocking it was for you?”
I just stared at her, my heart suddenly thumping. “I still don’t understand. Are you saying I’m going to be shocked about myself? Is this what you meant that day when you said you saw fear in me, fear of myself?”
“Oh, Lorelei,” she said with an air of exhaustion. “You’ve always been at the questions far more than any of us.”
“Didn’t you have this sort of curiosity about everything, Ava?”
“No. I understood I had to be patient. Forget about it for now, Lorelei. I’ve already said too much. Just remember my warnings, and don’t do anything stupid. Go on,” she urged. “I’ll be here at the end of the day.”
I heard the first warning bell.
“This is what you meant that day you said you saw fear in me, fear of myself,” I insisted. “You still see it in me, glow, gift, power, or not, right? Right?”
“Go to school, Lorelei,” she ordered. “Beware of pushing too hard and moving too quickly. Remember the myth of Icarus, the one Daddy likes to tell us. He flew too high when he was warned not to, and his wax wings melted. For now, stay on the ground, Lorelei. You’ll have plenty of time to fly later. Go on. Go to class. Go!”
I got out and watched her back up and drive off. I had been so happy when I rose that morning, so full of energy and eager to start the day, even in school, where I felt so alone and under attack daily. If Ava’s intent was to slow me down, to lower the flame burning inside me, she had succeeded. Suddenly overcome with a dark depression, I entered the building and moved so slowly toward my homeroom that I was a little late. My homeroom teacher, Mr. Burns, was surprised, but instead of the chastisement and warnings he gave other students, he just gave me that look of surprise and then, to my surprise, a nice smile.
After all, as Ava might say, he’s a man, and he sees the gift that has unfolded inside you.
When I looked around, the girls in the classroom looked angrier at me. I saw them start their whispering. The boys, however, wore smiles not unlike the one Mr. Burns had given me. When I first began to feel and see the changes in my body, the maturing that finally had begun to show, I felt a little like Cinderella. Something magical was happening to me, but because of who I was, who we were, I could have only moments at the ball. My midnight came quickly, and I had to shut down all the attention I was starting to get. There would be no parties, no dates, and no dances. I accepted and was obedient, always wondering why I had to be.
Ava had been right to take the time out that morning to lay heavier warnings on me. I felt the new Lorelei within me strain against those chains, but I also wondered why I couldn’t smile back at the boys who interested me. Why couldn’t I come out of the shadows and enjoy being there? What would be so terrible if I had a date? I wouldn’t go too far. Daddy had often told me I was the smartest daughter he had ever had. Ava didn’t realize how smart I was. I was beginning to think that just because she couldn’t do these things, she didn’t want me to do them. If I really did have a gift, a power, why did I have to wait to enjoy it? I would never lose sight of how important I was to Daddy.
The bell rang to start the day, and everyone rose, some moving faster than others, chatting with that shotgun energy that took them in all sorts of directions, what Ava called wasted energy. I did suddenly feel even more aloof, but not arrogantly so. I simply felt wiser, older, and more mature. I held myself back, because I didn’t want to fall in with them, be part of them. Mr. Burns smiled again and nodded at me.
“Have a good day, Lorelei,” he said. He was one of the younger high school teachers, probably only in his early thirties. Besides homeroom, I had him for English literature, my last period of the day. We were doing Shakespeare now, and he taught it by playing recordings of professional performances. He said the school didn’t pay him enough to have him endure us reading Shakespeare aloud.
M
ost of the other girls had a thing for him. I hesitated to think crush ever since Ava had mocked the word. He was good-looking, with dark brown hair, a little less than six feet tall, with impish green eyes. He had a tennis pro’s physique, lean and fit. I wasn’t part of the Gossip Broadcasting System here, but I knew that he was going hot and heavy with an intern at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. There was supposed to be breaking news soon on his engagement announcement.
“Thank you,” I said. “Sorry I was a little late.”
“First time, I ignore,” he said. I knew he didn’t. “You did something different with your hair today, didn’t you?”
The students for his first-period class were streaming in. He stepped closer to me.
“Not really much,” I said.
“Whatever you did looks very nice.”
I held his eyes with mine for a moment, smiled softly, and then walked out, feeling his gaze still on me. When I looked back, he was in the doorway, smiling in my direction.
Ava, help me, I thought, feeling I should think that after it had become clear that a teacher was flirting with me. But the truth was that I didn’t want her to do anything, not even give me those warnings. I wanted to explore, test myself and my power. More than anything, now more than ever, I wanted to be myself, even if it meant playing with fire.
Would I be sorry?
6
Play with Fire
“As a recent new student myself, I’ve been appointed to welcome all the new students to our school,” Mark Daniels said. “The concept is that I know more about what it’s like to start somewhere new like this in the middle of a school year, especially your senior year. So welcome.”
I finished my cracker and looked up at him. Lately, I found myself sitting alone in the cafeteria at a far right corner table that enabled me to watch everyone else. It had been a while since any of the boys had spoken to me. I had noticed Mark when he first entered our school. He was one of the better-looking seniors. He had a rugged, early Robert Redford look, the same almost messy dirty-blond hair, the same sexy smile. He had barely smiled at me since he arrived or said much more than “Hey” in passing through the hallways. He always kept moving, never expecting an answer. It was almost something he saw as his duty, to say hello to all the girls. That struck me as kind of arrogant, so I didn’t reply.
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